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Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Bitter Pill

You guys, something really weird happened to me. It’s kind of related to my recent blogging about what I am to understand is called Momnesia: basically me losing my marbles one day at a time.

So in June, you may recall that my husband hired me a housekeeper for the day to clean for my birthday party. And a few weeks later, I had what I attributed to a Momnesia moment. I thought I renewed some medication, went looking for it, and couldn’t find it.

Now it’s not a big deal, I dismissed it at the time. Because they’re basically just very low-grade anti-anxiety pills that I was prescribed for sleep when I was pregnant. I take them a few times a month on evenings I know I am going to be laying there staring at the ceiling listing all the things I’ve yet to do and all the time I should have spent doing said things. Am I the only one?

Anyway, these pills are awesome because they don’t put me to sleep, they literally just relax me enough where I can fall asleep on my own. But I am not so groggy that I can’t get up to soothe a very needy Wee ‘Burb in the middle of the night if need be.

Anyway, so I looked for them one night, and figured I just hadn’t refilled them. But since I couldn’t find the bottle, I just kind of blew it off and moved on. I have to confess, I was also afraid if I had refilled them and lost them, then calling to get another refill would put me on some list. Maybe it’s being the daughter of a woman who works in chemical dependency, I don’t know, but I fear ANYONE thinking I have some sort of issue with any mood-altering substance.

Case in point, after I had Wee ‘Burb, they put me on Vicodin. Which I hated, by the way. I don’t get how people can become addicted to falling asleep mid-sentence and waking up feeling hung over.

But anyway, so it said No Refills on the bottle. So I go to my two-week appointment and my doc is like “wow, Stephanie, you didn’t refill your Vicodin? You’re just taking Ibuprofen two weeks after having this baby?”

And I’m like deer in the headlights “but the bottle said no refills!”

Seriously, she stared at me like I had just spontaneously given birth to a twin they thought Wee ‘Burb had absorbed or something. And she informs me that it is only written that way so they can keep track of refills and make sure you’re not abusing it.

So I get yelled at for not taking meds, just in case you think the point of this post is that I was jonesin’ for some drugs and found them missing.

Since Wee ‘Burb has been mobile and I’m planning her first birthday and helping Scott with a new business while he constantly travels, I did need those pills, though. After three nights of not sleeping, I called Target and begged them to refill it. That was two weeks ago. I picked them up relatively without incident, other than that Target sucks my will to live with their construction and inability to actually refill a prescription within the timeframe given on the phone.

The other morning I get a call from Target saying my medication has been refilled. I inform them I picked it up two weeks ago. The pharmacist is puzzled, as you see someone called that morning requesting a refill. I asked if maybe it was an automatic refill request? She said no, they had a phone call request. Then she shrugs it off and goes “they must have just hit the wrong numbers.”

Ok, lots wrong with this scenario. First of all, have you used those automated systems? It’s kind of hard to punch in the wrong numbers because after you punch in said numbers, it says something like “please verify the first three letters of the last name are XYZ.” It also asks for a phone number to call when the prescription is ready. So if you did indeed make a mistake, those prompts would usually guide a person in error to start over. Right?

Second, why are they not more concerned that it’s two weeks and I’m refilling this prescription? I mean I get that it’s not some habit-forming pain-killer and all, but considering I need to turn over my fingerprints and first-born child to get Sudafed, you would think someone trying to refill a prescription two weeks after getting a whole bottle would maybe raise a few eyebrows.

I’m just confused why the woman at Target wasn’t more concerned. I’m trying not to blow this out of proportion, because if someone stole it and if they were trying to do something criminal with it, the joke’s on them. It’s something prescribed to preggos, so it’s not going to have hot street value, I’m just guessing.

But I also kind of feel violated that it’s possible someone was in my house stealing my medication. I’m not convinced it was the housekeeper because I don’t want to believe that of someone who does this job professionally. I know people who immediately blame “the help” when anything goes wrong in their house, and I do not want to be that person.

At the same time, I don’t know of any other strangers that have been in my house.

It’s just kind of an ooky feeling. Has this happened to anyone before? Do I need to take further action or just brush it off and figure the person either made an error or didn’t get what they wanted and moved on?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would take action. My parents got their identities stolen once by a receptionist. Sadly, people will do crazy, crazy things and conversely, people with addicitions aren't seeing the world from a "normal" perspective.

Sorry I can't be more uplifting - good luck getting it taken care of!

Kristen said...

that would make me so angry! And yeah Target maybe should have been a little more concerned about that, and hopefully they aren't gonna give the meds to whoever called it in!